How to Teach Vocabulary

Teaching English vocabulary is an important area worthy of effort and investigation.  Recently methodologists and linguists emphasize and recommend teaching vocabulary because of its importance in language teaching.  Vocabulary is needed for expressing meaning and in using the receptive (listening and reading) and the productive (speaking and writing) skills. Vocabulary is more than a list of words, and although the size of one’s vocabulary matters, it’s to know how to use it which matters most.

Vocabulary o Vocabularies?

In everyday conversation we speak of vocabulary in the singular; we speak of a person’s vocabulary. This is actually an oversimplification. The American Heritage Dictionary defines vocabulary as “the sum of words used by, understood by, or at the command of a particular person or group.” On the other hand, it seems important to notice that in the majority of cases there are some differences in the number of words that a person understands and uses. Even the terms “uses” and “understands” need clarification. For example, the major way in which we “use” vocabulary is when we speak and write; the term expressive vocabulary is used to refer to both since these are the vocabularies we use to express ourselves. We “understand” vocabulary when we listen to speech and when we read; the term receptive vocabulary is used to refer to listening and reading vocabularies. The acquisition of decoding skills leads to rapid expansion of literate vocabularies by allowing children to transcode their meaning vocabularies into their literate vocabularies. This is so much the case that for older students and for adults our literate vocabularies are probably larger than our meaning vocabularies. We tend to have a larger group of words that we use in reading and writing than we use in our own speech. That’s why written language is more formal, more complex, and more sophisticated than spoken language

P1. Relation between Skills and the Vocabulary.

Practical classroom ideas to support vocabulary development

Teachers can help students to extend vocabulary through whole class and guided group work by:

• Planning for the introduction of new vocabulary: Teacher could indicate on short term plans where and how new vocabulary will be introduced.

P2. New Vocabulary.

• Encouraging “word of the day”: The students and you identify a new word each day and attempt to use it in context as many times as possible.

P3. Word of the day.

• Modelling specific reading strategies to develop vocabulary: For example, drawing on analogies (rain, snow, sleet) or word families (either linked to spelling patterns or meaning).

• Exploring prediction of story and dialogue through either the use of textless picture books or the masking/covering of a specific piece of dialogue or text.

P4. Book with vocabulary.

• Pre-teaching vocabulary before meeting it in a text: For example key words such as technical terms, or words in unfamiliar contexts.

• Checking understanding of vocabulary meaning through targeted questioning particularly in guided reading and writing sessions.

• Providing clear objectives for developing vocabulary: For example giving students four words and asking them to use them during the lesson.

• Modelling a piece of writing in front of the class, explaining and verbalizing vocabulary choices as you go.

P5.Teacher is explaining vocabulary.

• Using guided writing sessions to support small, targeted groups to review a piece of writing and challenge vocabulary choices made.

Ideas to encourage students to develop vocabulary during independent tasks by:

• Promoting the use of dictionaries, thesauruses and spelling investigations to extend the range of words used.

P6. Dictionary.

• Playing word games to extend and challenge understanding of vocabulary. You can use the game "Taboo", it's a great option to make your students learn vocabulary and practice.

Video 1. Taboo

• Developing and extending independent reading experiences. They can read books.

P7. Students read books.

• Giving students a vocabulary notebook in which to record unfamiliar or newly discovered words which can be stored until they need to use them.

As you can see, you can use a lot of options in order that your students can learn vocabulary. Teachers should be prepared to teach different kind of vocabulary because it's the way to express our mind. So, if you want to be a great teacher, make an effort to learn everyday more vocabulary and use it with your students.